They met two years before, on the other side of the world. Tonight, Sunny and James both thought with bittersweet regret about how they got here - a third floor officetel on the outskirts of Seoul - Sunny, on the tiny kitchen hallway floor, wiped tears from her tightly closed eyes with a corner of her blanket, while James rested with one eye open, on his bed, a box containing every knife, scissor, and shaving blade in the apartment under his pillow.
***
He knew immediately he didn't like her.
"This is Sunny. She's been helping out the Overlook Retreat Resort, and now she will be with us." Brad Park, the manager and Headmaster of the Metro Education Center for Healing Science said, his hand reassuringly placed between Sunny's shoulder-blades.
She looked at the clean hardwood floor and smiled weakly. James, a student and teacher of eastern medicine and head of his own Healing Science Center, was good at reading people. Her uneven posture and bloodlessly pale skin, the tilt of her head and the way her eyes narrowed when she smiled a crooked smile - these were only the surface ripples of the deeper current. He saw a needy, insecure and troubled girl beneath, but could not suppress his all too natural sexual energies and urges completely. He permitted himself a moment to wonder about being with her.
Years of training to harness that energy, and James found himself sitting there with an erection, looking at a plain-at-best young woman who actually repulsed him on some level. 'This is exactly the type of girl I can't stand, but I somehow could end up with', James thought to himself as he focused his mind on his breath, his body, the center of his energy.
That focus had been the most essential part of James's training in Healing Science. Five years earlier, James's ex-girlfriend Anna brought him to a HS center for the first time. Anna had been brought there by her mother, who had come for traditional Korean healing methods to help her arthritis. Anna stayed for the spiritual practice and world-healing mission of the parent organization, despite warnings from some of her friends that it was some kind of cult. James stayed for Anna - at first.
~~
Anna was so beautiful in his eyes that there was almost no limit to what he would do to be with her. They began dating in college, back before every white guy in Williamsburg had an Asian girlfriend. James pursued her for over a year before he finally mustered up the courage to kiss her.
After countless tortuous nights spanning 3 seasons spent talking, drinking, listening to music, or just hanging out before saying 'good night' and going home lonely and dejected, James finally cracked. His friends did not understand why he hadn't made a move. They also didn't know Anna told James that she wasn't interested in a relationship with anyone. Coupled with her being Korean at a time when most Koreans stayed within their own social group, and the fact that she was more beautiful than any girl James had been with before, he thought a relationship with Anna beyond friendship would be impossible.
A conversation with his best friend Tim was the last straw.
"Anna's a cool person, don't you think?" Tim passed the end of a joint to James. The two of them were so similar they could have been brothers. Both were 5'11", similar strong build with just a bit of remaining baby-fat, blue eyes, shaggy and stubbly with too long light brown hair, and guitarists in the same band.
"Yeah, definitely. Why do you ask?" James killed the joint and leaned back in his chair.
"Oh, you know... I know you two hang out a lot. You're not hooking up with her, right?"
"Not yet - ", James leaned forward again, obviously agitated.
"Ha, right. It's just I hung out with her the other day at her place. Smoked a little. I mean, I always thought she was hot, but I never really talked to her before. She's cool."
"I know."
"So, if you're not like, gonna..."
"What?" There had never been any jealousy or competition between these friends, and the escalating conversation was making both of them nervous.
"You know she likes you, right? But she thinks you guys are just friends, so I was gonna ask her out or something, I mean if you're not."
"No man, I am. I was just waiting for-"
"Waiting for what? Everyone knows you guys should have been together by now, so, you know, just do it man. Man up! Pick up your sack!"
"Yeah, your right."
"You better, cause if you don't I will."
"Alright then. Thanks." James appeared to be back to his normal calm self, but inside he was all wound up. He had no choice. He had to make a move for Anna.
"I'm serious."
"I get, I get it. If I'm not in there by Thanksgiving, go for it."
"Fuck, I will dude."
"Alright, enough of this shit. Gimme that guitar over there..."
That weekend, on a cold November Saturday night in Anna's living room, James and Anna listened to the debut of 'Kid-A' on the college radio station, smoked a little pot and drank a little tea. It was well past midnight, and time to go home again. The two of them stood in the doorway with the cold night air blowing in.
He was torn inside to the point of desperation, and thought he couldn't live with himself if he didn't make a move. The idea of anyone else with Anna was unbearable, especially his best friend. James, one foot out the door already, turned around and said, "I don't want to leave."
"Then don't", she said.
"I love you", James blurted out as he stepped back inside her small apartment and kissed her. He held her strangely angular face as she parted her small lips and met his tongue with hers. His hands caressed her slight body through her thin woolen sweater as they kissed with a years-worth of pent up desire.
They moved to an upholstered arm chair, where Anna sat on James's lap, sweater strewn across the floor and faded pink bra exposed, a small bow in its center. He cupped Anna's hand-full-sized breasts and kissed her neck as he removed the bra. She softly grunted, and began to grind her hips slowly against him and his growing erection.
James gently squeezed a small, dark, hard nipple, and Anna raised her hips up, simultaneously providing James the opportunity to kiss her breasts and slip his free hand inside her panties, also decorated with a bow. She grunted again. James ran his fingers along the inner crotch of her panties, felt the slick, wet coating that already soaked through the delicate fabric, and brushed them against Anna's bare, slippery outer lips. She grabbed his muscular shoulders, kissed him again and pressed her tongue firmly against his. She licked his lips as James's index and middle fingers slipped inside...
~~
Again, James tried to recover his focus and suppress these sexual thoughts as reality slapped him in the face. He was in the middle of a meeting, trying to listen to the Headmaster, and Anna was sitting just behind him. The real Anna, five years after the now imaginary one occupying his thoughts. Cold, aloof, and focused on whatever Headmaster Brad had been talking about for the past few moments.
As expected, it was Sunny's role at the Overlook Retreat Resort, which apparently was minimal. Life in this organization was not easy - for most devotees and instructors it was part monk, part faith healer, part salesman, part recruiter - and it could be very stressful. James imagined Sunny struggled in her previous role, and was sent to Overlook to recover in a low-pressure environment. Now she was here to take some kind of intermediate step, James thought, and to likely move on again to manage a HS center of her own.
She stood in front of the classroom, beside an anatomical model skeleton with a similarly gawky appearance. All the 'faculty' were gathered, seated behind massage tables that doubled as desks. True, there were a few actual teachers in the room, but the majority of this mixed American and Korean group were in some way cult acolytes.
Everyone smiled artificial grins they actually thought were genuine - except the Headmaster and the newbie. She appeared genuinely nervous and in need of a serious confidence boost. Her short cut black hair sat asymmetrically over her pallid, yet somehow attractive face, and her thin, slightly scoliotic frame supported a baggy long sleeve t-shirt and hippy skirt. The staff smiling at this waifish character were all dressed in either sharp expensive suits, or pristine pressed martial arts robes.
"Hello, I'm Sunny. Nice to meet you. I will do my best!"
Everyone clapped, and Sunny lowered her shy eyes even more. Her thick accent would not have been out of place here, but she was clearly self-conscious about speaking.
As the weekly status meeting was brought to a close, the women of the team circled around Sunny and began to introduce themselves. James, who along with Brad and James's young employee and healer-in-training named Luke were the only men in the region, made his way toward Sunny. As he approached the group of women, Brad clasped his shoulder and said, "James, I need to speak with you. Please come with me."
"Yes, Headmaster," James replied and pivoted to follow Brad out of the classroom to his private office. His eyes met Sunny's as he left, and he held her gaze just a moment too long. As he looked away, he saw her dark eyes flinch. He could hear her voice, somehow too soft and too sharp at the same time, as he walked down the hall to the Headmaster's office.
